AYANEO Air Pro Review

I was recently fortunate enough to pick up an AYANEO Air Pro handheld (in the simply gorgeous Aurora White colour) and while it's undoubtedly much heavier and thicker than my partners Nintendo Switch Lite, it's roughly the same size in the X and Y axis at least.

While I decided to spring for the Pro model; I chose the base model CPU (Ryzen 5 5560U), 16GB memory and the middle-of-the-road 512GB NVMe SSD. Why would I choose the Pro chassis and the slower CPU? well, 2 reasons:

1. Bigger battery

I know from reading reviews that x86/64 handhelds suffer from poor battery life, so I'll always opt for a bigger battery whenever I can to keep me off of a power bank or away from a wall for as long as possible. I figured roughly 2-3 hours of playtime would typically be enough for me during a handheld gaming session, and so far I've validated my hunch here.

2. Better cooling

The cooling in the Pro unit is designed to keep the Ryzen 7 5825U cool enough at 18W, I figure it'd do a better job than the Lite version and would contain more metal and hopefully need to spin up the fan less... As I have not got the other version to compare I have no idea if this assumption is correct but it stands to reason.

The waiting game...

During a couple of months of waiting for the device (that we all know feels like an eternity), I began to have my doubts as to if it would hold up to what I wanted to use it for. It's not like I need it to do anything too outlandish mind you, I already have a very high-spec desktop gaming rig and no shortage of consoles so I'm firmly going into this for the right reasons; mainly for those titles that lend themselves to handheld/controller only gaming, and my simply immense backlog of indie titles in Steam.

Upon receiving the reasonably packaged delivery, serviced by DHL to my part of the world (Australia), I wasn't really sure what to expect... I know this company aren't a fly-by-nighter or anything but I wasn't sure on the level of polish they'd offer through the whole process, I mean, there's only one Apple right.

Unboxing

With my level of expectation firmly set, I was greeted by more than I bargained for... The device was very well packaged in a high-quality retail box and came with not one but two USB type-c to type-a dongles, a power brick (can't take this for granted these days, looking at you Apple.... Samsung), and some international power plug adapters. It's worth mentioning that you can get a GaN charger as an optional extra, but as I already have a couple of these floating around the house I really didn't want to spend extra, though I did spring for the case and its not bad (more on it later).

As far as the construction of the device goes, it certainly has a premium feel even if it's all entirely plastic. It does not really flex, feels very durable and I'm not worried about how long it's likely to last. I'm not prepared to test its durability like someone like JerryRigEverything would as I intend to use the device, but I don't see it falling apart in day-to-day usage for me.

Having received it while I was working for the day I plugged it in to charge and went back to work, ready for the end of the day.

AYANEO Air Pro Unboxing

First hands-on (Core Software/OS)

This is where the tale for me hit its first road bump, the Windows 11 onboarding experience on this device is pretty poor, through multiple steps of the process the device just got stuck for 1+ hours on the getting ready screens (this happened twice), and I had to hard shutdown by holding the power button both times, hoping that the next time I started it up it would resume and work properly, it did the first time but not the second time.

The second time I had to hard shut down the unit it would power on but the screen would just stay black, and not do anything else, it was in this state for about 30 minutes of waiting then turning it off and on again. The only thing that got it back on track was booting into the recovery firmware and then starting it that way. This was frustrating and quite a disappointment, I've since struggled to get Windows updates to install so I've kinda just given up on them for now, it's working albeit complaining about updates it then fails to install.

My next gripe comes with the "AYA Space" application they hyped up on the product page. This software is a barely passable mess that only works half the time, they say they are making their own Linux distribution as well but the fact they cannot get a launcher/config application working properly on Windows makes me shudder at the job they'd do of a whole Operating System.
You're meant to be able to launch your games from this central hub (which I'd like as I think Windows in tablet mode is just awful) but this ended up pushing me mostly to Steam Big Picture mode where I can have a more passable experience. It's no SteamOS/SteamDeck OS but it's not buggy...

The only real thing you need AYA Space for is to be able to adjust important stuff like the TDP of the device to balance power savings and performance depending on how demanding the title is you're playing, and unfortunately more than half the time this won't just overlay nicely on the screen over the top of the game but minimises the game and shows the desktop with the overlay instead. I originally thought this may just be poor coding and that it could not overlay the settings over a fullscreen game vs a borderless window game but this didn't actually make any difference in my testing, strange...

Hardware

I have to say, for a device that they seem to have put a lot of effort into to have things like hall-effect joysticks, great triggers, etc. they really really dropped the ball on sound. The quality of the sound in this device is about as good as my old Gameboy from decades ago, and the down-firing speakers (which I easily accidentally cover while holding it gaming, mind you) really do not help the cause.

If I'm laying back while gaming and the device is on my chest/stomach the speakers are basically inaudible, so it means holding it in a less comfortable manner. Yes, I'm aware that headphones are a thing but this is a device competing with the likes of the Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch/Switch Lite, sound really matters and I don't want to be wearing headphones while causally picking up a platformer for 10 mins while I'm waiting on pasta to boil or my partner to get back from doing something to continue watching a show... I don't think front-firing speakers would solve all the audio issues here, but it surely wouldn't have hurt.

The screen is an AMOLED/OLED job, and as a result, it's got nice true inky blacks and a nice dynamic range, and the brightness gets high enough for my usage. However, the screen does not seem to support receiving an HDR signal, leading me to believe this is potentially an old 16:9 phone screen from a phone like an older Samsung Note or something before HDR was implemented.

Gaming Performance

With the device finally going I installed the required stuff; Steam, GoG, and Xbox Game Pass. They installed no worries and I got to install all the indie game backlog I have (and later uninstall some that were keyboard/mouse only, oops). There was one firmly in my "pile of shame" I'd never played before and I booted it up first and that was Thomas was alone. 

Thomas Was Alone

I had set the TDP on this one ambitiously to "Power Save" (5 Watts) and was soon greeted by some chugging, so a quick (kick to desktop, grr) change in the overlay to "Balanced" (8 Watts) and it was able to run with the highest detail setting at 1080p, it isn't much of a challenge to run being quite a basic game and by no means a new indie title, but I was off and running. I played this for a good 30 mins and was having a great time. 

I have since finished the game (about 3 hours) and I have to say that if you have not played this one, grab it one day when it's on sale and treat yourself, it's a fun little multi-character platformer and I wish I'd played it sooner.

You suck at Parking

This game is a tonne of fun and good humour, even if the developer maybe pushed their luck a little at launch with some questionable decisions.

This one is a much newer title than the last game and needed some setting optimisation in order to get a ~60fps experience. I needed to drop both the resolution to 720p and a bunch of the details down as well as push the TDP of the device to "Game" (15W). With these changes made it runs quite well.

This game is right in the sweet spot for me of what handheld gaming is about, it's got short little zones with several stages inside of them, and has leaderboards (kinda like Poly Bridge, another love of mine).

Art of Rally

With this Game Pass title (also available on Steam) I did need to drop the resolution down to 720p and run it at "Game" (15W) TDP.

This game is perfectly suited to handheld gaming, an isometric rally game that's not that difficult to run, though certainly difficult to master.

Disco Elysium

Another title that requires "Game" (15W) TDP and some reduced settings including the resolution to 720p. It runs really quite well though this may be helped by the art style and slow animations. I intend to play all the way through this one so I may come back and update this (apparently it's around 60 hours long) to give some long-term play feedback.

I originally purchased this game before it was Refused Classification/Banned in Australia as a middle finger to the regulator but as I heard more about it I wanted to actually play through it. It's an isometric skill-based story tree RPG, part quirky part disturbing it's turning out better than I ever expected it could.

Optional Accessories

They had a number of optional accessories available at the time I pledged on Indiegogo but the only item I chose to grab was the hardshell "Titan" Storage Bag [case].

Having purchased my partner a Switch Lite and never getting her a case then her proceeding to never buy a case since (had it 2-3 years now) I figured it would be a good idea to protect my investment by just coughing up for it up-front, which was a reasonable AU~$30 at the time.

I mean, it's a good enough case, it has a nice and robust zipper, enough space for the Air Pro and a protective flap inside that goes over the screen to prevent scratches, handy as it has internal netting storage above the screen so the risk of scratches is probably a real thing in this case (pun intended).

It's a solid "worth it" from me.

Verdict

I purchased this device primarily for the same reasons that the device was (allegedly) created. I'm not trying to run the latest AAA titles here and I have no interest in doing so on this device, and if I did I would probably just use in-home streaming with Steam or Moonlight. 

So my use case puts me into the "ideal consumer" space for this device and considering the price of it is AU~$1,100 vs a comparable 512GB Steam Deck is US$649 (AU~$1,050) which is not available for purchase via official channels in Australia anyway at this time, what do you get?

Well, the hard truth of it here is that you're trading performance for portability and a nicer-looking screen albeit with a GPU that struggles to run it even on older indie titles at the native 1080p resolution.

The upside here of the 1080p screen is that it's so small (5.5") that running it at a non-native 720p really isn't that noticeable, even though the resolution scaling is non-linear the pixels are too small to tell.

Another pretty big downside for me is that I would have liked to see such an established player in this space have a far better and more polished experience with regard to their bundled software. I don't expect miracles but what you need to offer is so basic, in some underlying config that will barely get used, some OSD settings for important stuff like TDP, Sound and Brightness and game launching, and it's not like you haven't got Valve to copy for established methods of doing this, even if it's as (arguably) as ugly as Steam Big Picture, it works!

Regarding the software, originally I was thinking that I would just format it on arrival and install Steam(Deck)OS but the jury is still out on using that with these non-Steam Deck handhelds and being able to do things like adjusting the TDP, etc. I did watch a video from ETA Prime on doing this but it seems a bit too unpolished, at least at the moment. 

Perhaps in the not-too-distant future, I'll chuck Steam (Deck) OS on a Micro SD Card and see if I can get it working how I like it, but it'll still be missing out on my GoG games and my Xbox Game Pass subscription by doing that, not to mention missing compatibility for a tonne of titles and anything I have in other launchers too, I have Assassin's Creed Chronicles in UPlay, for instance, perfect in my opinion for handheld gaming being an older platformer, I couldn't play those in Steam (Deck) OS.

If you fit into the device's key demographic of:

1. A device that's very portable
2. Don't plan on playing the latest AAA games
3. Can get over the terrible required bundled software
4. Have more money to burn than buying a comparable Steam Deck (or cannot purchase one in your region yet)

I think it's a solid buy, I do not regret the purchase at all even if I have to deal with some niggles with it. I just really wasn't expecting to pay what feels like an "early adopter tax" with regards to software, this ain't their first rodeo!